The HP EliteBook 1040 G11 is here, and I can tell you right out of the gate that this is going to be a positive review. HP just makes amazing business laptops. The Dragonfly was the best for so long, but since so much was changed with this year's EliteBook Ultra, that leaves the EliteBook 1040 leading the pack.

Completely redesigned, the EliteBook 1040 G11 comes in an almost white color, and it still weighs in at around 2.6 pounds. Being light and easy to carry, it's a perfect fit for its 5G option, something that HP no longer offers in the EliteBook Ultra tier.

But that's not all. Most importantly, it's got a best-in-class keyboard and an array of display options that fits any need. It's just an excellent laptop.

Sure, it's a Meteor Lake laptop with Lunar Lake already announced, but to be fair, that's fine for a business laptop at the moment.

HP provided the EliteBook 1040 G11 for review. It had no input on the content of this article.

HP EliteBook 1040 G11 pricing and availability

The HP EliteBook 1040 G11 is available at Hp.com, starting at $2,384, although there are currently discounts that bring some models down to $1,599. Of course, these prices are mostly meaningless. Like all business laptops, the MSRP is pretty expensive, but you likely have a purchasing department that's negotiating a price to deploy these to a fleet of workers.

You can purchase one yourself, of course, which is what those prices are for. It's worth considering too, since this really is one of the best laptops around.

It comes in all of the configurations you're used to from HP's business laptops. Screen options include FHD, FHD with Sure View Reflect, FHD with Sure View Gen 5, and OLED, and you can get 5G connectivity if you want. For this review, HP provided the FHD panel and 5G.

Design

It's got a new look

The EliteBook 1040 comes in a new Glacier Silver color, which is a shade of silver that's as close to white as you can get without actually being white. I think HP put a lot of thought into this, because it's unique, subtle, and still stylish.

The Glacier Silver color is unique yet still subtle, like you'd want in a corporate environment.

Being a business laptop, it's not going to come in bold colors like the Sapphire Surface Laptop. These products tend to come in silver or black, because you're not looking to stand out in that type of corporate environment. This particular shade of silver allows it to be delightful, while also maintaining that corporate subtlety.

It's made of mostly magnesium, which allows it to come in at just 2.6 pounds. That makes it lighter than a MacBook Air, while also packing a bigger screen.

The chassis has soft-touch edges on all sides; indeed, there doesn't seem to be a sharp corner on this thing at all. It's loaded up with the ports that you'd expect as well.

There are three USB Type-C ports, two of which are on the left and one of which is on the right. The two on the left are Thunderbolt 4, so if you're using a Thunderbolt docking station, you'll have to make sure to use one of those. You can recognize them by the little lightning bolt symbol.

The ability to charge from either side of the laptop makes a difference.

HP gets bonus points for having USB Type-C ports on both sides, rather than just packing them on one side. Seriously, the ability to charge from either side of the laptop actually makes a difference.

Also on the left is an HDMI port and a 3.5mm audio jack, while the right side has a USB Type-A port and a nano-SIM slot.

Display and keyboard

The two-tone keyboard is best-in-class

The 14-inch 16:10 FHD display on the HP EliteBook 1040 G11 isn't anything to write home about. It's a similar panel to the ones used in previous generations, and that's fine. You get this one if you want the best battery life. There are lots of options to choose from.

There are three other displays you can get. One is OLED, which is definitely going to get you the most vivid colors and darkest blacks. Personally, that's what I would pick.

Then there are the two Sure View options, which is really interesting. Sure View is a privacy display technology; you press a button on the keyboard and suddenly people won't be able to look over your shoulder to see what you're working on. Sure View Reflect has been around for a few years now, but Sure View Gen 5 is new. I haven't actually tried the latter just yet.

Now, back to the FHD panel that my review unit has.

My display testing didn't show anything surprising. Most FHD laptops don't support a particularly wide color gamut. Again, if you need that, go for OLED.

Brightness came in at 419.4 nits and contrast came in at 1500:1. Again, that's fine for an FHD panel, and if you want better, go for OLED.

The webcam is solid, and I still stand by what I often say, which is that if you want the best webcam experience, you buy an HP laptop. Lenovo's webcams have been poor quality as of late, and Dell uses tiny sensors in its XPS laptops. HP has been focusing on webcam quality for a while now, and it's gotten pretty good at it.

This laptop has a 5MP MIPI sensor, so there's a bit of room for auto reframing on a 1080p video stream. HP also has its own Poly Camera Pro software, which is excellent for tuning your looks for your meeting.

Being a Meteor Lake laptop, you do get some Windows Studio Effects, but you're missing a lot of the AI smarts that you get on something like the EliteBook Ultra. That's fine though. Windows Studio Effects aren't as valuable as Microsoft wants you to think when every meeting software on Earth can blur your background for you.

I've reviewed hundreds of laptops, and I prefer to type on an EliteBook.

The keyboard is once again best-in-class, something I've been saying about the EliteBook 1000 series for a while now. I was saying that about the Dragonfly series as well, but since the EliteBook Ultra really doesn't feel like a Dragonfly, the EliteBook 1040 is where it's at.

Let's talk about the design too. The keyboard is two-tone now, giving it a really stylish and pleasant look. Personally, I love it. And yes, it has a Copilot key, which you're free to never use.

Again, these keys have some of the least wobble of any keyboard out there, it's comfortable to type on, and it's accurate. I've reviewed hundreds of laptops, and I prefer to type on an EliteBook.

A note about software

It's too much

There are nine apps in the Start Menu that start with the word "HP", which is not including the myHP app. It's a lot. Some of it is useful, but also, this stuff isn't particularly easy to remove.

There's a web browser called HP Sure Click Secure Browser, which is a locked down Chromium browser. HP Wolf Security seems impossible to shut off, and it somehow makes itself into an extension on Chrome.

This stuff is good, if you want it, but it needs to be easier to disable and remove.

Microsoft used to have something called the Signature PC program, which were PCs that didn't have any additional software. Since it was discontinued, OEMs have slowly moved away from this model, and it's frustrating.

Performance and battery life

It's Meteor Lake

Intel's Core Ultra chips had a limited launch in December of last year with a more broad rollout in the coming months, and while that wasn't very long ago, the company started talking about its next platform, Lunar Lake, almost immediately. In the face of intense competition from Qualcomm, Intel painted Lunar Lake as the platform that was going to win in terms of performance and efficiency, making it immediately clear that it's worth waiting for.

That's been a dark cloud hanging over the head of every Meteor Lake product. Meteor Lake, which is what's in the EliteBook 1040 G11, is fine, as long as you're not looking for on-device AI capabilities like Copilot+. Frankly, I think Copilot+ is overrated, but that's more of a topic that I covered in my Surface Pro 11 review.

But like I said, in terms of performance, Core Ultra still has what you need. It's a productivity powerhouse, and I still use it for editing photos in my reviews. It's fine. Also, on a side note, most of my Meteor Lake reviews come with that caveat to wait for Lunar Lake, but the EliteBook 1040 G11 is so good that I'm comfortable still recommending it.

As you can see, the EliteBook 1040 benchmarks really well, blowing away similarly specced devices. You can see that the EliteBook Ultra has similar scores, other than in emulated x86 tests, but that's also because HP chose to use the X1E-78-100 SKU of the Snapdragon X Elite. Devices with the X1E-80-100 do a lot better.

One thing I want to note is fan noise. This is not a noisy product for an Intel laptop, but now that Snapdragon laptops are good, it feels loud. The EliteBook Ultra isn't fanless, but it's way quieter than the EliteBook 1040.

Battery life has been great. Running on the 'Best power efficiency' setting in Windows and screen brightness at 50%, I can get nine or 10 hours if I'm not taking any video meetings. Google Meet hates batteries. As usual, changing the power to best performance drastically lowers battery life.

It's an endless cycle for Windows PCs. You have to use power settings to get what you want. I talked about how the EliteBook is great for photo editing, but you're going to have to switch to best performance for that, and sacrifice battery life. So, when I say it can get between nine and 10 hours, that's while doing regular productivity work in the browser, and if you want more than that, you'll have to make sacrifices.

Should you buy the HP EliteBook 1040 G11?

You should buy the HP EliteBook 1040 G11 if:

• You type a lot
• You're on the go
• You just want the best laptop experience

You should NOT buy the HP EliteBook 1040 G11 if:

• You want Copilot+
• You have a graphics-intensive work load like video editing

Like I've been saying throughout this review, the HP EliteBook 1040 G11 is one of the best laptops on the market. For the last year or so, if you walk into a tech event and there are a bunch of laptop reviewers in the room, many of us were using the HP Dragonfly. But like I've also said, the EliteBook Ultra (the successor to the Dragonfly) doesn't quite live up to the same standards. The EliteBook 1040 is where it's at.

Also, this is the one Meteor Lake laptop I'll still recommend with Lunar Lake hitting the market. It's just that good. The only way I wouldn't is if you really want those on-device AI features.